Juxtaposition
by lamprien
Summary: She's drowning, almost, but how can you drown when you're flying? Liza Shepard told through various lenses.


Anger comes easier than passion, these days, when it's so much better to feel the spit of a gun under your hands, the rattle of a medigel dispenser. It floods her veins, hot and heady, curls her lips, furrows her brow. It makes her armor twice as heavy as she's ever felt before, but it's solid, a good weight.

Some say that the two are the same, both heated emotions that _scrabble scritch _in the back of your mind, two things gone two different and similar ways.

They're really, really not.

Passion wouldn't make her lash out, fist connecting with the bulkhead, knuckles screaming under the pressure. Passion wouldn't make her red hair fly wild, suspended in the turn of her body, the tautness of her shoulders. Passion would grab her, hold her tight, bring her in, tough plates under her palms.

Her armor lies forgotten, pieces splayed in perfect disinterest across the shuttle bay floor. The edges are starting to look a little rough, now, in need of some cleaning and a good paint job. Her guns are similarly abandoned, lying across the benches in disarray, scuffed and streaked and, well, not very pretty.

This is a war. There's no time for softening rough edges, healing things. This is the time in which broken edges splinter, _crack_, fall apart. Easy. Simple.

She comes to a seat near the benches, her thoughts spiking her biotics, rattling the spare thermal clips Vega keeps in his bunk. They make ugly little clinking noises, echoing in her too-full too-empty mind. Her knees groan under the strain, so she slides back onto her butt—no one's watching, no one can see.

The first gun she picks up is hot, still smoldering from overuse down on Rannoch. The sand sticking to it has long since burned to glass, cloudy little sharp things stuck in opposing corners, orange and red flashing the color of sunset into her face.

The rag she takes to it rips on the first go.

A sigh vibrates her hands—or maybe it doesn't—as she reaches for the next, and this time she's a little smoother around those rough edges, a little kinder. The glass starts to flake off, first in little pieces, then larger, revealing the scarred metal underneath, each pass revealing more of the poor thing than the last.

This one could use a good paint job, too.

A loose hair tickles her hand—it flexes involuntarily, she drops the rag.

Time for the third.

By now the gun is shining slightly from the careful buffing, the black-streaked metal looking like a piece of art rather than a well-used machine. It's a small one, it is, her hands almost covering the entire barrel, tip to end. The glass leaves scratch marks on her palms and on the grip, ones that would have bled a lifetime ago. Now they just pulse, throb, close, leaving angry little red lines to match the angry big red lines. Metal to metal, machine to machine.

Everything is angry, now, even the slight tip of her head when she jokes with Traynor, the flex of her palms against Garrus in the dark of the night cycles. They've learned to flinch away when she stalks the halls, saluting crisply not a moment too soon. Her hair stays knotted tight, no forgiveness for flyaways. A perfect representation of an Alliance soldier, blue eyes hard and fast and _cruel._

Her hands clench over the gun—_so much involuntary movement… I need to get that looked at—_and it skitters away. She makes a half-hearted grab for it, but it's far away and there's really no motivation in the movement.

Finally, thankfully, she manages to stand upright, abused muscles groaning a few asari curses her way—_don't ask, too much to explain all at once._ Legs tense, threatening to pitch her forward, her hip throbbing with deep, old pain. The damn thing feels like it'll split her in two, but that'll have to do. Commander Shepard, hero of the Alliance one time over, taken down by a bum hip and a few bruises.

She manages a passable limp across the cargo bay, stretching out old scars with each step. Cortez passes her then, looking anywhere but at her, and for that she's grateful.

The elevator doors hiss around her, opening and closing in about the same amount of time it takes her to puzzle out her grease-stained hands and the fact that she didn't put any of the equipment up, _damn it._ It practically spits her out onto the crew deck amidst salutes and a few odd looks.

All hail the Commander that can barely keep herself together.

Wandering aimlessly isn't that fruitful on any ship, let alone one this big (or small, depending), but God knows she'll do it anyway. It's somewhere around 1600 hours now, she thinks, and the night cycle will start soon, bathing the ship in darkness as the crew ostensibly _does not sleep._

Garrus' hand catches her somewhere around the med bay, strong fingers closing on her waist. "What are you doing, Shepard?" His mandibles flare lightly, almost a flutter of confusion.

"I really don't know." Her voice barely holds any inflection other than a mirroring flash of confusion, brows furrowed against the dark cast of her face. She looks a bit lost, red hair pulling at the harsh bun, a smear of grease across her face.

He pulls her towards the elevator, crushes her against him, lets her rest her head in the hollow at his shoulder. "Shepard, you can't keep doing this," he rumbles slowly, breath hot against her hair. "You're the best damn commander I've had the pleasure of serving under, and now you can't live up to that." He scoffs, a little growly noise in the back of his throat. "You need to rest."

She bites back a comment about resting when she's dead, because _damnit, she's likely to be dead soon anyway, _and instead curls closer, sighing. "I know, Garrus, trust me. I'm not winning any awards for being a big girl right now." There's a bitter pang to her voice, anger tinging the edges.

He steps back suddenly, holds her at arm's length. "Shepard, look at me." He speaks firmly, softly, not a command but not a question, either. She's almost burning a hole in the elevator floor, not moving even when the doors slide open. The lock on her cabin door casts them in faint green light, washing her out, her skin sickly pale.

A hand comes up to grasp her chin, only to stop a few inches away as the glare transfers to him. "I am done being the Commander. I'm _done._" She's gone, then, in a flash of red.

He bumps his head against the wall, sighing heavily—most everything was a sigh nowadays. Shepard is glass just slightly cracked, and it would only take a strong word to bowl her over, scatter her pieces on the winds of the galaxy.

It only takes a moment to key the door to lock once it's been opened, and EDI hums a distant affirmative when the code beeps true.

She shudders against the hiss of the door opening, her shoulders hunching over the desk. The press of his abdomen is hot even through the back of the chair, his presence warming the air behind her. Long fingers thread through her hair, pulling through tangles the color of dried blood, splashing across her fatigues and pale skin alike.

"Liza," he breathes, and of course he would pull the name card now, when she's _this close_ to falling apart and he knows it. "Come to bed with me. No pressure, no expectations, aside from one: you get a good eight."

Damnit, but he knows that the nightmares come between the ship's heat cycles, where she always wakes shivering and alone. There's no resisting, no refusing, and she allows him to pull her over to the bed, allows him to slide off her shirt and pants, allows him to rest his hand on the curve of her back and the growing hollow in between her ribs. His hands move gently, not taking, but giving. Her underwear follows the rest and soon they're pressed together, the ball of hurt building in her throat giving way to warmer things.

She collapses into him, face banging uncomfortably on his cowl, but he slides her head upwards. Hands made pure from kind intent stroke her face, arrange her hair into a rusty splay across the white sheets. It's almost artful, it must be, Shepard all hard planes and soft edges, red and cream and the blue-black of the tattoos; he's gunmetal and smoke, hard edges and soft planes and a slight purr that lulls her slowly, softly, into sleep.

There are no nightmares.


End file.
